The Senators took a moment of silence in memory of Past Senator Robert Bottcher from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. After which, Chair Emeritus Corbin reflected on Dr. Bottcher’s life at NC State.

Chair Carter recognized Senators Smoaks, Blanchard and Sawyers on being promoted to Full Professors.

Chair Carter recognized the Holladay Medal recipients and welcomed the new Senators.

3. Approval of the Minutes, Meeting No. 13, April 16, 2002
The minutes were approved as amended.

4. Remarks from the Chancellor
“I wanted to bring to you some information about this issue about salaries for the staff in my office. This follows a need to correct misinformation from the News and Observer the last time on the Conference Center. This is in the same spirit. As all of you know that when the News and Observer see even the slightest hint of any movement from the media, it presents a rather disturbing view on occasions. I want to go over a few things with you about these raises.

First of all they are not raises. They are temporary assignments. The big philosophical point I want to emphasize is that I have consistently, every time I have talked to you, the staff, and the administration talked about the desirability for us to have market based salaries. I have advocated with the staff a need to have additional flexibilities so that we would not be constrained by the very narrow ranges imposed by the State Personnel Act and why it would be extremely important for being able to reward good staff whether they are technicians, clerical staff, or specially trained. So long as they are SPA we have no means to distinguish between those who serve actively and well and those who serve just above what is expected as minimal performance. The importance of recognizing merit, I think, pertains to every class of employee in the university. The question is for those two classes for which we do have that kind of discretion, namely faculty and EPA, what are the mechanisms by which you can identify resources to distinguish those who have substantial contributions beyond simply meeting the job description. There are three sources for those kinds of adjustments.

a. Course incremental changes in the state appropriations.

You know what kind of resources that gave us last year, essentially very little.

b. We had the campus-based tuition increases where we made the case to the Board of Governors, to our Board of Trustees, and to the students who were paying for those additional costs that specific needs would be addressed and one of those was faculty salaries.

Because of that negotiation that pool is not available for EPA salaries. In fact, it was restricted because of our promises to the Board of Trustees, the Board of Governors, and the students that those raises would be given only for response to outside offers, equity, compression, depression and inversion of salaries. If deans and department heads made the case, those raises for that particular purpose were approved without any difficulty. They were taken to our Board of Trustees. They were approved and sent to the Board of Governors. Of course the amount of money that is available limits the ability of the Deans and Department Heads to respond in that way.

c. To reorganize and reallocate funds within a unit.

When you do that, you collapse positions or take positions that are vacant and reassign the responsibilities from that position. One can be able to recognize extraordinary contributions and in fact get the work done.

When I came here, for example, I had five EPA employees. Today I have two. You can imagine therefore, that given the pace of change that has been taking place on this campus that those two are called to work extremely hard. They work extremely well as well and when we went from five to two, we did that in steps. One of them was that as a temporary measure (one salary line which was left vacant because the person left), we were able to assign those responsibilities to the two remaining professional staff in my office who took them up. What that means is, that entire salary was available and only part of it was reallocated. So with respect to the state’s interest in doing this, the state benefited because instead of paying one person $60,0000 I gave temporary salary increases, a temporary measure to reassign the duties while we awaited an appropriate applicant at the same time with the state would give us sufficient flexibility financially to hire someone. This was driven by the budget. To the extent of that happening, sixty minus ten minus ten is forty thousand dollars which constituted the operating expenses in my office. In fact, this was true not only for those people who are in my office, but it was also true for Vice Chancellor Moreland who as you know served twice as Interim Provost and as Interim Athletics Director. When he did so, he, like the people in my office was given supplemental pay. Since this last year I was understaffed in my office and because he took on additional responsibilities to help with the search for finding his replacement, he also was offered a supplement which brought his salary back simply to where he was before the current Provost arrived. None of those things are discussed in the News and Observer article. If you look at the amount of money saved by having vacant positions in my office in the last two years, the amount is three hundred thirty-seven thousand dollars. Anyone who drives past my office in the morning or the evening will see the lights on. My office operates from approximately 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. My question about these supplemental pay increases is whether in fact, I can continue to get this level of effort from the dedicated professionals who are in my office. Long term, I do not believe that I can. I am asking far too much of them. You can ask that of me because I am crazy enough to have signed on to this job. To ask for it from EPA professionals without compensation seems absolutely impossible. I can tell you that we followed the procedures for supplemental pay exactly as they are posted on the web. The salary ranges were less than 15% which is the threshold for getting Board of Trustee and Board of Governor approval. Because my staff did not get 15% and because they were not raises anyway, none of these approvals were required. Even though they were not required, we talked about this to the Board of Trustees and they endorsed it. This is in the class in my opinion, of bending over backwards. At a stage where there is tough budget times, a $10,000 raise looks like a lot of money when in fact, it is a savings for the state on a much larger amount. I hope you will also agree with me that the supplemental increases given to Vice Chancellor Moreland represent an extraordinary contribution that he did uncompensated when he did two jobs during the time that he was Interim Provost. He continued to do his work as Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies with Dean Sowell picking up some of the additional duties. He continued all of the activities as Provost, picking up additional help from Frank Abrams for which we are really very grateful. That really is the situation. These raises are temporary because they are awaiting the news one way or the other about the budget. I am going to have to do something ultimately because I cannot work my people as hard as I have been working them. Quite frankly I think they should be congratulated rather than criticized.”

Senator Tucker wanted to know if this happens across the campus.

Chancellor Fox responded that supplemental pay is an option that is available to any dean or department head who wants to do this. It does require reallocation of funds.

Senator Tucker wanted to know if the Deans and Department Heads have the ability to reallocate the funds.

Chancellor Fox stated that they make a proposal to the Provost and the Provost can approve or reject. That option is available. Just as supplemental pay is available to faculty who take on an additional course.

Senator McRae wanted to know how many times the supplemental salary request was exercised on campus in the last year.

Chancellor Fox stated that she does not know the number because most of the campus-wide requests have gone through the Provost’s office. She noted that this is the first year in her office because of reduction simultaneously of the state budget and an open line in the Chancellor’s office that they undertook. “We are now leaving Mark Fleming’s position because of the same uncertainties with the budget next year.”

Rosalind Thomas, Chair of the Staff Senate commended the Chancellor. Thomas stated, “She has been very supportive to the Staff Senate since she has been here. It was a hard decision to make but one that was very worthwhile. I know from experience that Clare Kristofco and Patricia Teal are always there to answer questions. In stressful situations they always come across trying to do the best things that are possible for the entire campus community. In the Senate this year Chancellor Fox has given us the opportunity for growth and leadership. Most importantly the North Carolina Family Scholarship has been given two years. This is the only university in the state that has this program.”

Chancellor Fox stated that they think it is very important to get the flexibility of dealing with SPA rewards the same way that they do for EPA, Administrators, and Faculty. The most serious problem is that the pool that is available is too low. “We are going to have to do creative things like this more often.”

Chair Carter stated that he is concerned about the apparent exposure of confidential information.

Chancellor Fox noted that she is concerned as well. This was material that was uniquely held within personnel files.

Senator Sawyers wanted to know why this would be confidential information.

Senator Sawyers stated that he does not think there should be any intent to criticize those that received these supplements or the Chancellor’s actions. He noted that when faculty have additional assignments they are usually considered as committee work, and they do it on a regular basis.

Chancellor Fox stated that she is sure that is true. “For that, you need to be compensated at a market rate that is comparable to other faculty who are called upon to do that very same thing.”

5. Memorial Statement
Senator Hooper read a memorial statement in honor of Dr. Duncan R. Stuart, Professor Emeritus from the College of Design.

6. New Business
Council on the Status of Women
Chair Carter introduced Deborah Harvey as Chair-Elect for the Council on the Status of Women.

Creating Learning Villages on the NC State Campus
Dean Kathryn Moore from the College of Education stated that one of the specific pleasures for her is being asked to chair a task force on living and learning at NC State. She stated that she cares a great deal about the academic and learning environments on campus. She thinks it is the heart of what we do. “I was asked to join this group and begin a conversation about how we might move forward in creating a more exciting living and learning space at NC State, given a set of trends and issues that I think we are all familiar with. Karen Helm will walk you through the work of the Task Force. We have been commissioned by Vice Chancellor Stafford and Provost Cooper has joined it, wanting to know how our work is going forward. We expect to have a draft report ready and we are considering this conversation with you and others as a kind of focus group conversation. As we present to you, we are seeking your advice and counsel about the ideas that we have been working on, things that we have found, and the ideas that are shaping up for us.”

Karen Helm stated, “The task force was commissioned by the Division of Student Affairs and our work will be used initially in revising or developing a new master plan for student housing and residence life on campus. Our capacity right now for housing students on campus is at 7500 students. Almost one third of our full time on-campus students are housed on campus in fifty-two different buildings.

We house three fourths of the freshmen class, but that is not to say that the housing program is primarily freshmen. Only 40% of the resident hall residence is freshmen.

There are a number of special programs in our residence halls that combine academic or co-curricular programs with the residential programs. Approximately one out of five of our students live in a residence hall where there is a combined co-curricular or academic program combined with the residence program.

There are a number of reasons why the Division of Residence Life has been focused on planning right now. The demand for on-campus housing is substantial. Some consultants that were employed by that division estimate that we could use an additional 1900 beds with the enrollment that we have now. In addition to that the university is going to grow. We will need approximately 2100 beds by the year 2005 and even more by 2010.

Another reason why this is an issue on the agenda has to do with the university’s desire to improve student success and retention. This has been a long standing concern and there are a lot of activities focused on retention now. By reading the literature about student success and retention you will find that what goes on outside of the classroom is just as important or more important to student’s success, how they bond to the institution, and how they relate what they are learning in the classroom to their own personal lives. A lot of that takes place in the residence halls.

There are a number of concerns about facilities that are driving the need for a housing plan and a lot of interest in recruiting quality students. Some of the people on our task force have pointed out that when they bring students to campus (new prospective freshmen) that the residence halls are very important aspects that they look at to see whether are not they want to come to NC State. It is a recruiting device as well.

In the housing division there are a number of ongoing planning processes. They assess their quality. As I mentioned before they have retained some consultants (Anderson Strickler) to do the kind of market analysis that is necessary to support this housing plan. Anderson Strickler also engaged a lot of students and focus groups and surveyed students to find out why they lived on campus, what it is that they want from on-campus housing, why they choose to live off campus and a variety of other information that was very useful. Our task force is really the latest step added to that stream of planning. We have reviewed a lot of the information. In addition to that information we visited three institutions (University of Virginia, University of Maryland, University of Michigan) because they have very strong living learning programs. We surveyed our peer institutions, and now we are talking to groups on campus like the Faculty Senate asking for advice on how the housing program should develop at NC State. The task force’s charge was to provide the vision and direction for planning. We have been spending most of our time trying to create a vision, a set of guiding principles that will become a foundation for our plan for Housing and Residence Life. Perhaps the most specific we will get is to recommend the number of students who would live on campus.

We have come up with a metaphor for how we see housing develop on campus. That metaphor is the village. We think the more we talk about this metaphor the more we like it. We see that it can be very instructive in helping us think about how the housing program would develop physically. It is also a useful metaphor for how we would develop the programming for students that takes place in those residence halls.

The Learning and Living Village is a further elaboration of the village concept. A lot of the literature suggests that the way students bond with the institution and their interactions with other students, faculty, and staff outside of the classroom are very important in their overall learning experience. What would happen in a village? We could provide opportunities for academic engagement. We have actually talked about continua of academic engagement that might range on the one hand from just having a computer lab and a residence hall in a residential village, all the way to faculty perhaps living there, classrooms, and whole academic programs being integrated into the village. Certainly there would be opportunities for social interactions. One of the most important images that probably comes to your mind is that a village is where you can have social interactions. A village is also a place where you can do the other parts of your life besides studying, talking, and socializing.

We talked at some length about the different villages for different kinds of students. What would a village for graduate students be like? Graduate students whose academic pursuits are so narrowly defined that their major academic activities are in their departments and not where they live. We are starting to realize that one important aspect of a village was conveniences.

Another aspect in carrying on the metaphor is that villages typically have some sort of government. In this case it would be student led/staff led government. Villages also have an identifiable place. You usually know when you enter and leave a village. There is something about it physically that tells you that you are in a village. Perhaps most importantly, a living and learning village would require a partnership between Student Affairs and Academic Affairs. This is an attractive idea to those of us on the task force. It is very clear that it is not going to work unless the faculty and others in Academic Affairs become full partners in developing the village concept or the living-learning concept as it is applied in the residence halls.

We have identified a number of themes for different villages. As I mentioned, one out of five of our students is already living in a residence hall where there is some academic or co-curricular programming woven into their residence life.

In summary, villages could become a key component of an enriched educational experience for our students. That is the metaphor that we are trying to develop. We could use these villages to promote academic engagement. We would look for a welcoming place, a home as well as a social/academic place. Today we would like your reaction. What do you think of the village as a metaphor to guide the development of the housing program at NC State? Do you think that we can engage faculty as partners in this process?”

Dean Moore stated, “One of the reasons we latched on the village concept is that we already have one in King Village. Also, there are clusters of buildings now. There is a sense of cutting into the big campus in a way that makes it a more exciting living learning opportunity for students and for some of us who love to teach and want to take a specialty and have students gravitate towards it. At the University of Maryland for example, a star economist took up this cause very excitedly because he said when high school students come to college they have no idea what an economist does. I want a bunch of very good students to become economists, so I am interested in this. Part of his living-learning theme is that he takes students to the stock exchange. He brings Alan Greenspan out to talk about economic planning. He has a pot of money in his living-learning center that he uses to craft and to set a stream of experiences and small credit courses that he is very excited about. He finds that the students he gets are very excited about what they are learning.

The campuses that we visited say that there are waitlists for certain thematic residence places. Some of the very best and most interesting students are the ones who select these. They tend to be faculty led with students or residence hall support. There are models out there. There is a lot of excitement around a number of campuses about them. If folks like you think that this is not an idea that would interest your students or yourself then I think we need to hear that because the whole key here is a partnership between academics and Student Affairs and Residence Life.

We will be gathering information to present to the Vice Chancellor, Provost and eventually Chancellor Fox to propose that if there is sufficient interest even in experimental forms of it, we would then propose a follow-on a year in which we would begin an implementation plan and gather folks around us. Residence Halls are going to be planned. We are going to build some new ones. We have the opportunity and the need to renovate some, so we have a platform in residence life and I think a wonderful leadership from residence life to query us on the academic side. Do you want a partner?”

Senator Headen commented that he is thinking of these as units. They seem to have the capacity to both insulate and isolate as well as these other components. He has not heard how they would in some sense communicate with one another to generate the benefit of integrating across all of these things at the university, as opposed to something moving into your park and closing the door and staying. He asked, “Has that been thought about?

Dean Moore stated that they have thought about it There are models out there. Some living learning centers have an annual living learning fair in which they celebrate and compete with each other. There are cross programming opportunities in some of them. “We need to go back to when we were freshmen and remember what it was like if you came onto a big campus. The point of most of our focus would be those students who are coming new to the campus and trying to find a way in and a way to stay. Our view is that the habits of some students would not change. They would be in residence life for the first and second years and then move out. Some experience at Maryland is that there is now a demand for upper division living learning centers. They want to move to their major area or some combination and they want to keep that spirit alive. We are mindful of the fact that a village does turn inwards to some extent and in some ways you want that to happen.

Our belief is that what we have looked at for students coming in this is a way to find their place–a home, a set of friends, even some places, schedule clusters of classes. Then some classes are taught along the theme even if it is math or English you can weave the theme around it. It all takes the creativity of all the faculty to imagine such a place.”

Senator Kimler observed that the faculty do a lot of this creating a sense of belonging in all the programs that they run. There are lots of organizations on campus in which they urge the students to belong to, which means many of the things are being done without the physical space. One could argue that the money that would go into creating such a structure could be instead given to departments and that faculty would be happy to do that within their own settings without needing the organization of the physical space.

Senator Kimler stated, “We are as much on this campus making an effort to make sure that students meet people outside their majors. Currently all of our special villages get every major across campus. It really puts students into a university setting, whereas if you start separating by disciplines early, you have done something contrary to the university.”

Dean Moore stated , “We said themes and the notion of a cluster and a village would have even more residence halls than a Maryland mode which is one residence hall at a time. The Maryland or Virginia model is that there is typically a lead college/department, but they must partner with others. I do not think that we thought that this would be solely owned or operated by one discipline or even one college, but that it would be a partnership and more thematic and that is what is developmentally appropriate for sophomores and juniors. Even when we make students pick a major, we all know that they wander about a fair amount, and they question a lot. This would make that a virtue in a fairly guided setting.”

Senator Wilkerson stated that the most important thing to her about a village is that it is small. It is more important that when you are organizing living groups that they be small particularly for freshmen who are on campus. Part of the university experience is getting to know people who come from very different backgrounds.

Senator Allen stated that in her long career with children, the most successful program that she has ever seen was at Yale University where they have the houses and a faculty member who lives there. She wants to know if there is any way NC State can do something like that.

Dean Moore stated, “That is what is called a residential college where there are resident faculty and staff. Harvard does some of that. There are possibilities for that. You would need to have a group that identified that this was their interest and that this is the kind of commitment that they want to make. There is also talk that since we have so many students who do not live on our campus that you would want a village that has a sense of obligation to be inviting so that some of their programs and offerings would be open to others so that notions of service, service learning, and our welcoming diversity, those kinds of themes could be built into the governance agreements of any of the living-learning centers that we might have.

Our proposal will not be that we suddenly go there. Our proposal will be that we establish an agreement among the community that we are going to experiment. There are going to be some units that want to step forward and try them out. CHASS has talked about a global village theme that would pull many of their disciplines together. Environmental Science and Natural Resources and CALS are talking a little bit about environmental issues. We have been concerned about Hillsborough Street becoming a back door instead of a front door to the campus if we start to move more interesting activity toward the Centennial Campus. How do we think about that? Where you put students on a campus affects lots of things. The look and feel of the campus itself is affected by how students are organized and how we program opportunities for them. There is a whole piece of master planning in this that residence halls are going to have to do in one way or another. This is a request for faculty participation in those discussions.”

Senator Tucker wanted to know the advantages/disadvantages of diverse interest.

Dean Moore stated that it would be a question of how interesting the theme is and how narrow it might be. “ I think it would just matter who wants to step forward as to whether it will attract the interest and support of others. We have examples from all over the country of different themes that we can provide a menu of what people have done. Some of these living-learning centers have application procedures in which you have to write an essay and explain why you would be a good member of this community and the community helps to make that decision. There are lots of models. I think it will be a matter of engaging academic innovators on this campus to try some of these things out.”

Dean Moore stated that there will be a proposal made to the Executive Officers whether or not this is something that we would like to implement with some experimental units but also as part of the way that residence halls will begin to think about configuring. “Someone is going to decide. Do we want more than a motel room or not? If we do, how do we help residence halls make the decisions for the new 2000 or 3000 more beds. They are asking for our input and advice on it. Purely it is their money. This is an opportunity to shape the living-learning environment for students with an academic voice as part of it. We do not know what the model is and we are merely asking focus groups around the campus to think about it. Some people are already excited about it and others are not really sure about it or even interested. It is an opportunity for the campus to think anew about the partnership between where students live and how we instruct them.”

Chair Carter noted that there is not a lot of new money needed to do this. “Michael Harwood, Campus Architect, has indicated that with landscaping ties and paths between buildings we could move to create this village concept with what we have currently. We do not need a lot of new buildings to get this started.”

Senator Kimler stated that all the models seem to show faculty involvement. This means that it is going to have to come out of the compact planning of departments somewhere.

Karen Helm commented that part of it is just doing what you are already doing some place else and maybe reshaping that. It is not necessarily all new.

Senator Daley stated that he is sure that there are a lot of faculty interested in this. He wanted to know how would this affect their promotion and tenure.

Dean Moore stated that, from what they have seen on other campuses, those places have faculty often mid to late career who believe this is a wonderful thing. This is their calling. They are very excited about it. This is an opportunity where they get an academic budget to spend to increase learning for students. Some folks said they loved it, they do it for two years and then they go back to some other pursuit. Others go longer than that. “It is really up to us to craft the model and certainly we would not want to hurt anybody’s opportunities or chances for promotion and tenure. I think that would be a conversation we would have with anyone about any activity and not just this one.”

Senator Allen wanted to know what kind of funding there is for this project.

Dean Moore responded, “We do not know yet. The residence halls are going to be renovated. Do we want them to have classrooms in them and common areas? Do we want to have the opportunity for some faculty to have some office there and some spending accounts? Do we want just what we have? There is this physical idea which is going to happen one way or another. The academic budget piece will have a year that we will plan it and talk about what it will take. If there is a strong commitment, it will happen. We think it is a way to build stronger alumni loyalty. It built fondness for the campus in many of the places we visited. They bond and they care a lot about what happened during those years in a new way because of where they lived. In the end it will be our choice as a community. I do want to thank Residence Life. It is a wonderful opportunity they have at least offered us on the academic side.”

7. ElectionsSenators Chair Carter introduced the new senators, and recognized the old senators for their services to the university during their terms on the Senate.

Chair-Elect of the Faculty
Secretary Alton Banks and Senator Dennis Daley were elected to run as candidates for Chair-Elect of the Faculty.

Athletic Council
Dr. Odis Wayne Robison was elected to serve the remainder of Dr. Robert Bottcher’s term on the Council on Athletics.

Senators Roby Sawyers and Suzanne Weiner were elected to serve two-year terms on the Council on Athletics.

Cecil Brownie, Fred Corbin and Mary Tetro were elected to serve two-year terms as alternates.

8.ReportsAcademic Policy Committee
Senator Ash, Chair of the Academic Policy Committee, reported that the committee has discussed changing the minimum eligibility standard that is part of the continuation of undergraduate enrollment regulation. She distributed a description of the current policy and stated that quite a few faculty see it as complex and difficult to explain to students. They have been working with the idea that they would like to change it to a simpler system with two cutoffs. It basically would require a student to maintain a 1.667 GPA during their freshmen and sophomore years (which would be up to 50 hours) and a 2.0 GPA for students entering their junior year at 60 hours. The primary motivation is that it will match the progress toward degree regulation that will begin this fall for entering freshmen. Currently we allow students with a GPA of 1.8 and junior hours to remain eligible to continue. With the progress toward degree, all juniors must be matriculated into a program. Every program has at least a 2.0 GPA as a requirement for matriculation. We create the opportunity under the current system for a group of students who are technically eligible to continue but if they are not already in a program in which they are making progress, they cannot continue. Our suggestion is that we take this opportunity to revisit our minimum eligibility standard, make it more straightforward, make it easier to communicate to students and also have it dovetail with the progress toward degree regulation.

There are some additional issues that the committee discussed that some of the Associate Deans have raised concerns about. One is that currently students are not suspended until the end of the academic year so there is no suspension that takes place until the spring. There is also a policy that students are not suspended until they have been here for two semesters. Those are some issues that she thinks the committee also needs to address.

Chair Carter stated that the Executive Committee will address the report at its next meeting.

Personnel Policy Committee
Senator Daley reported that the Personnel Policy Committee has reviewed the proposed revisions of the process for faculty appointment and review as well as the Peer University Benchmarking Study from Human Resources.

He also reported that Human Resources is looking into the issue about a debit card for NC Flex,